Personal Experiences

Bernadette Story.

One summers evening , several years ago, while sitting on the veranda of my home overlooking the beach at Malahide, County Dublin and out across the Irish Sea…I got into a discussion with a Catholic priest, a Father Joe Mangan, about the existence or non-existence of a God.

Joe Mangan was a tough New Yorker, a straight speaker who was intent on proving to me the existence of his God while I refuted and rejected all his theological, religious and spiritual arguements.

After a short time it became obvious that Joe was getting more and more frustrated by my stubborness and refusal to accept that which was so plainly obvious to him….that a God did clearly exist.

Eventually he said to me "I give up…is there nothing or no one that could convince you of the existence of God"…..He continued…"What if the sky was to open at this moment and the face of God appeared above you…then Liam would you accept the truth"?

I immediately replied "No…I would not accept that it proved beyond doubt the existence of a God" "Oh for heavens sake why not"? he asked. "Because" I said, " if a face appeared in the sky above me, I would attempt to explain that appearance in a rational manner…Such as…was this an hallucination…or an optical illusion….or perhaps " I said, raising my wine glass, "intoxication"?. "All of these possible explanations would seem more logical to me than the explanation of a God"

Joe got more than slightly angry and said "OK so there is absolutely nothing that could ever convince you to change your mind" ? "Well" I replied, " there is one thing…….. when I was a child, I recall either reading or hearing somewhere that the body of Bernadette Suburois..Saint Bernadette of Lourdes is incorrupt, even though she has been dead for some 100 years…..is this true"? Joe replied that although he had not witnessed this phenomenon for himself…Yes he believed from good authority that this was indeed the case. I told him that this was something to me that could NOT be rationally explained…it was indeed something "supernatural" and certainly if true, would make me revise my thinking on the subject of a Creator.

The conversation ended and we both went our separate ways. At that time I was broadcasting each week on a Radio program called "The Travel Show". Apart from compering the program I also did most of the interviews both studio and recorded and also worked as Travel Editor of a British Business Magazine. So it was not unusual for me to receive invitations from Tourist Bodies both in Ireland and abroad and/or Airlines, to go on press trips otherwise known as junkets.

A few days after the conversation with Joe Mangan, I was sitting in my office, when a call was put through to me from Liz Drucker of Air France in London. I had met Liz on a couple of occasions as she worked in the Air France Press/Public Relations Office. Liz told me that she was organising a press trip for that weekend. Air France was launching a new product called Air France Rail, whereby Irish travellers be they tourists or business people who were travelling to France would no longer need to book Air Tickets and then separately negotiate Rail Tickets, bus tickets and so forth for an onward journey from Paris. In future they would simply book with Air France right through to their final destination, be it Bordeaux, or Marseilles, or Nice or wherever and the Air Ticket would cheaply include the cost of the entire trip and would be honoured by SNCF (French Railways).

They would take a group of Irish journalists to Paris to launch Air France Rail and would spend 2 days there to include a Rail trip out of Paris to a French provincial destination, just to get the feel as to how Air France Rail would work.

Having no plans for that weekend I readily agreed to go, and arrived at Dublin Airport on the following Friday evening to meet up with the other journalists. We were given a "Press Pack" with full details of our trip and Air France Rail, climbed aboard an Air France Boeing 727 and a little over an hour later touched down at Charles De Gaulle Airport. An Air France Coach met us and we were driven into the City to the Hotel Sofitel, and each was shown to his or her hotel room. Liz told me that when I had settled in, I should go up to the 23rd floor where there was a night club and we could relax and have a few drinks. On the 23rd floor I sat beside Peter Mills of SNCF (French Railways) who I knew from previous trips and in fact had interviewed Peter on my radio program a few weeks before. I asked Peter what the plan was for the following day and he told me that we would be leaving at 7am for the Gar De Lyon Railway Station, where we would board a train for a two hour trip south of Paris to a town called Nevers. I had not heard of the place before then and asked him what was special about it. He told me that there was nothing particularly special…the purpose was just to take the train and sample how the Air France Rail product worked in reality. He did mention that Nevers was quite famous for its porcelain factory and there was a magnificent Chateau nearby once owned by the Duke Du something or other.

Well the following morning we headed off on the train. We occupied our own special conference coach, with large table and arm chairs and waiters brought us a regular supply of cheeses and wines….Air France and SNCF took the opportunity of a captive audience to show us Videos on a large screen of the new A320 Airbus Aircraft recently entering service and some new super fast trains that SNCF had in operation.

Some 90 minutes after leaving Paris we pulled into the station at Nevers . We were met on the platform by a local tourist guide and some local journalists who had an interest in recording the visit of these Irish hackers to their sleepy little town. Soon we set off on foot on a tour around the town , led by a Tourist Guide who explained all about the architecture and the local vineyards and other places of interest. Each member of the Irish group been given a Press Pack containing photographs and details of Nevers…….I glanced through it and found little of interest. However it was a bright warm sunny day and we had a pleasant stroll around,stopping off briefly at a Café en-route for a light lunch.

Soon after leaving the Café, the main group of journalists led by the Tourist Guide, had gotten well ahead of me and another female journalist. We straggled some 50 yards behind them as I took photographs of this that and sometimes the other…mostly buildings. As we walked down a small street, the main group ahead of us turned into the right. We decided then that we had best hurry and catch up or we may lose them altogether. We reached the gateway where the others had entered, and walked into a deserted courtyard. On the right further up the courtyard was a religious statue in a Grotto and to the left, what looked like a church. My straggler companion said "I know where this is…………….. it’s the Convent of Saint Gildard where St. Bernadette was a Nun after she left Lourdes" I remember replying "Gosh that’s amazing, I was only talking about Bernadette a few days ago" Nothing else came into my mind…I didn’t have time to consider anything else as neither of us had noticed a Nun running towards us from the church…..didn’t notice her that was until she was almost upon us and tugging at my arm. In broken English she said "Come…come quickly she is waiting……come". My journalist friend took fright and headed for the church leaving me struggling with my heavy camera bag and the aggressive Nun. She looked at the camera hanging from a strap around my neck and said "No….no photographs ..please no photographs". But as I kneeled down to remove the camera and put it in the bag, she again pulled at the cuff of my jacket and repeated "Come".

I was practically manhandled across the courtyard to a doorway at the side of the church. I stood at the doorway and looked inside. To my left I saw the main portion where a Mass was in progress, with quite a large number of people kneeling. As my gaze went slowly around from left to right I saw that I had entered at a side altar with maybe 8 or 10 rows of sparsely occupied benches in front of me . At the top was a small altar in front of which stood a glass coffin containing the body of a young woman clothed in a Nun’s habit I knew immediately that I was looking at the incorrupt body of Bernadette Suburois……..Saint Bernadette of Lourdes.

My first thoughts were scrambled…..bit like being hit by a bolt of lightning..(not that I have ever been hit by a bolt of lightning to make the comparison). I mean what are the odds of my ending up in a town in the middle of France that I never heard of and didn’t know existed, a few short days after my discussion with Father Joe Mangan. But more than that I was amazed by the "shock" value. Why….. in Dublin Airport or on board the plane, or in the hotel, or on the train, or during the tour around Nevers that day….why had I not been told about or heard or read in any of the Information packs, that this was where the incorrupt body of Bernadette was kept ? Until the very moment that I had looked from the doorway and seen the body in the glass coffin I had absolutely no prior notice or hint of what I was about to see. It seemed as if that fact had been deliberately kept from me in order to maximise the impact.!!! I walked slowly and I admit unsteadily up to the altar and gazed down at the face of Bernadette. The body is perfect. It is indeed as if she was sleeping. My investigations since that day have told me that Bernadette had died in 1879… 116 years before. Unlike the body of, for example Lenin in Moscow, it was not artificially preserved, and apart from a small coat of wax on the face to prevent discolouring..(which had only happened because the Nuns who first exhumed the body in 1909 had inadvertently washed it and caused portions of skin to turn black), the body had not been embalmed or mummified. I spent some 10 minutes beside the coffin, lit a small candle and then turned towards a door to the right of the altar, and back out into the courtyard and the sunshine. My Journalist group was scattered around at the far end of the courtyard back near the entrance gate. I was completely on my own, with nothing to visibly show that I was a journalist, Irish or had any connection with the group now gathered at the entrance gate…….. when… another Nun approached me….a different Nun to the one who had "greeted" me on my arrival. She stared into my eyes and began speaking to me in French. I smiled sheepishly and shook my head (as you would do when someone speaks to you in a foreign language) . I said "I’m sorry…No French..I do not speak French…English ?….do you speak English "? She shook her head and looked around the courtyard…catching the eye of Liz Drucker, who was in conversation with others near to the gateway.

There was no motion to Liz to come over to us…just the eye contact but nevertheless Liz walked towards us.…..The Nun then turned back to me and said in a very soft yet pronounced voice "I am not obliged to make you believe, I am only obliged to tell you what I have seen and heard. You have come a long way to be with Bernadette today and she is happy to see you. We think perhaps today may change your life. We wish you God Bless and God speed and a safe journey back to Ireland" She then turned and walked away.

As my mysterious Nun disappeared through the doorway and into the church Liz said "We had better hurry Liam or we will miss the train back to Paris" Well I had just been struck by another bolt of lightning…..Trying to be very calm and mature and NOT in the least bit melodramatic …I just said to Liz…" I THINK I just had a religious experience"?.. She laughed and said "Really"? As we walked to the entrance Liz asked me. "Liam where did you learn to speak French"? Somewhat confused by the question I replied honestly "I don’t speak French" She said "Then how did you understand what the Nun just said to you" I said "Because she spoke to me in English" Liz said "No, that Nun did not speak English…she spoke in French"!!!!

By then we had reached the other journalists and Liz began organising and counting heads before leading her gaggle of chattering troopers back to the Nevers Railway Station. I have not discussed this incident with Liz since that day. Nor did I ever explain to her the FULL story of what I had experienced that day……I think she just brushed off the multi- lingual Nun incident and forgot about it..she had so much more on her mind at the time. Me…. I just kept quiet and tried to figure it all out.. I am still trying to figure it out !!!! I later discovered that the words spoken to me in French (or English) by the second Nun, were in fact a quotation from Bernadette. When she was a small child in Lourdes and told the Village elders about her apparitions, they scoffed and chastised her for telling lies. At which point, the child Bernadette told then "I am not obliged to make you believe, I am only obliged to tell you what I have seen and heard "